Well-Digested Words of God and Life

Follow via Email

Tag: LCMS

Comparisons to Nazi Germany are always dangerous to make. It’s too easy to be dismissed as overstating your case. Nazi Germany symbolizes utter evil. What Nazi Germany stood for and did is in fact that: they dehumanized, medically experimented on, and murdered a vast swath of humanity in a short period of time. Utter evil.

These statistics are horrifying. Yet statistics are abstract. We can be horrified and still look away. In the last several weeks a series of undercover videos have revealed that Planned Parenthood harvests the organs of later-term children they murder, profiting from the sale of these organs. Every one of these videos has shown this in graphic detail. I have watched the videos.

We Christians can no longer look away or say we didn’t know what was happening. We have to know what is happening; we must see it, or at least know the descriptions of what is going on in these abortion mills, our sacrificial temples to the god of sexual license. We should never have looked away in the first place.

In the most recent video, a baby boy who has survived the abortion is still alive outside of the womb; placed into a plate. His heart is still beating. A medical technician then cuts through the chin, face, and forehead of this child – still alive! – in order to harvest his brain for medical research.

This is the truth of our culture of death. We have dehumanized our children to the point that we will consider them a commodity, useful only so far as to make our lives better. What horror. Words cannot describe the monstrousness of all this.

Beloved, we live in Nazi Germany.

If we remain quiet, we are accessories to murder. Lord, help us! Lord, have mercy! O Lord, open my lips!

This Saturday there is a coordinated nationwide protest against Planned Parenthood from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m (local time). I hope that if you are able you will go. It’s not our obligation to go and protest this Saturday, but we must speak out. It will take courage. It will take a willingness to listen to those who would speak against us. It will take a resolve to stick it out – no matter what – for the sake of the 55 million children who have been murdered, and for all those who await a similar fate. It will require us to be ready with the Gospel for those who repent.

There will be many more opportunities for all to get involved in helping out crisis pregnancy centers and other pro-life organizations around the country. Every day you may have opportunities in your lives to question the American assumption of the right to an abortion; the supposed right to murder a child.

We should not act because we might win. We must act and speak because it is right and true. Our Lord loves life, He loves you, and He has died for all sin. Let’s repent of our quietness and quickly begin to be Gospel voices for life.

Dear Family, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

“It’s not about me.” That’s what Peg wanted to get across – she titled her book with this sentence. It’s not about Peg. It’s about Jesus. Everything is about Jesus; all of life is about Jesus. That’s what Peg believed.

This belief is a gift from God. Jesus says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The one necessary work that God asks of us, and that God works in us, is that we believe in Jesus Christ, our Savior. Peg believed in Jesus Christ, her Savior.

But she couldn’t do it on her own. She was sinful from conception, just as King David knew he was when he wrote down those words in Psalm 51: “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Like all of us, Peg was dead in her transgressions.

But new life was given to her from God. Her faithful parents brought her to the font, where she was baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection on October 1, 1953. Thereafter she walked in the “newness of life” that Paul describes in Romans 6, which we spoke together at the beginning of the service. “We were buried therefore with [Jesus] into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Having been blessed with the baptismal gifts of a regenerated heart, the Holy Spirit, faith, and the complete and certain forgiveness of her Sin, Peg could rightly say that it wasn’t about her. It’s all about Jesus, for her; and for you.

Dear Alice, Terry, Cherie, family and friends; grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21b)

Those are words of tremendous faith, uttered by Job. He’s just lost everything: home, property, servants, even all his children. And yet he remains faithful and leaves all things in the hands – the merciful, loving, trustworthy hands – of the Lord.

I remember these words coming up somewhat casually on Wednesday night, after our dear Ed had fallen asleep in Christ. So I want to bring them up far less casually now: these words of Job teach us how to respond to everything which we go through in our lives. The mark of a Christian is to trust that God’s will is good for His beloved people – no matter how difficult it is.

A common area of pastoral concern regarding Holy Communion centers on the responsible communing of those with health issues related to alcohol (e.g. alcohol intolerance; medication reactions; alcoholism). There may also be members of a parish who have an aversion to alcohol due to some past experience in their lives.

First and foremost, every one of these cases is going to require individual pastoral care: discussion, prayer, and study of the scriptures together.

Questions arise from time to time – and in fact I came across one posted to Twitter overnight – concerning what may be used for the elements? For example: “Is it alright to use gluten-free hosts?” Another question (this is the question linked to above): “Is it permissible to use non-alcohol or alcohol-removed wine in the Supper?”

First, it is not in keeping with our Lord’s institution nor faithful to the meaning of the text of Scripture to use pasteurized, unfermented grape juice in the Supper. Amongst discussion of this topic, a common argument is that the phrase “fruit of the vine” used in Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 22:18 would not mean fermented grape juice (wine) but instead unfermented (e.g. Welch’s Grape Juice). This is an erroneous interpretation of the text. The use of grape juice in the Holy Communion is a modern innovation, with exegetical arguments made following the change in practice.

The Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) has written concerning the question of not using wine, and includes discussion of pastoral practice when dealing with certain exceptional circumstances, such as those listed at the beginning of this article :

All four accounts of the Lord’s Supper speak of “the cup.” The content of this cup was most definitely wine. The references in Matt. 26:29 and parallels to the “fruit of the vine” would not have suggested anything else to Jesus’ listeners than the grape wine of the Jewish Passover ritual. In 1 Cor. 11:21 there is corroboration that the early Christian church understood wine for “fruit of the vine.” Some of the Corinthians, sadly, had abused the Holy Supper by becoming drunk.

The color, type, or origin of the grape wine is a matter which Christians can select in accord with their situation.

In the oft-cited pastoral circumstance of an alcoholic communicant, the counsel of foregoing Communion for a period of time or the action of diluting the wine with water (perhaps done at the Lord’s Supper itself) are preferable. In the extreme situation where even greatly diluted wine may lead to severe temptation, no fully satisfactory answer, in the opinion of the CTCR, can be formulated. The counsel of completely foregoing Communion is clearly unsatisfactory. In this situation, too, the actions of diluting the wine with water or intinction would be preferable. The substitution of grape juice raises the question of whether the Lord’s instruction is being heeded. Luther’s openness to Communion in one kind is difficult in view of confessional texts which strongly urge the Biblical paradigm of both kinds, though the Confessions do not address the extreme situation.

A similar pastoral problem is posed by those rare instances where a severe physical reaction is caused by the elements (as, for example, when the recipient is concurrently taking certain medications, or is simply allergic to one or the other of the elements). The pastor, in such cases, will surely stress the Gospel’s power and total effectiveness in the individual’s life and patiently seek a practical solution that both honors Christ’s word and satisfies the desire to partake in the Lord’s Supper.

This is a helpful outline of the concerns and solutions, relying on faithfulness to the institution of our Lord while at the same time stressing the importance of individual pastoral care. There is debate concerning whether or not the practice of intinction is faithful (which the CTCR describes as a possible practice), but that’s outside of the scope of this article.

The CTCR does not discuss the use of now commonly-available wines which are advertised as “alcohol-removed.” A type with which I’m familiar is Fre from Sutter Home, although there may be others. The question cited above from Twitter directly relates to the use of this type of wine in the Lord’s Supper.

The question boils down to whether alcohol-removed wine is still truly wine. In the Scriptural use of the word “wine” (οἶνος), as well as in our common everyday usage of the word, wine is the “fruit of the vine,” that is, made from grapes, and is fermented. As the CTCR document discusses, the wine used in Holy Communion should be made from grapes; varietal, color, etc. are a matter of Christian freedom.

The process of making our alcohol-removed wine isn’t really that different from making regular wine. We source grapes from premier California vineyards known to produce the very best characteristics of each varietal.

After harvest, our winemakers carefully craft each wine using traditional methods. Once the desired flavor, texture and balance is reached, we use state-of-the-art spinning cone technology to remove the alcohol while preserving delicate aromas and flavors.

Likewise, the “fruit of the vine” used in Holy Communion should be fermented; that is, it is faithful to Christ’s institution that there be alcohol present. Fre wines, while being “alcohol-removed”, do retain some small percentage of alcohol.

Although we remove most of the alcohol during our spinning cone process, a small fraction of a percentage of alcohol remains—less than one half of one percent (<0.5 %).

It is my pastoral opinion, humbly offered, that it is acceptable to use Fre wine as an alternative to a “fully-alcoholic” wine in certain, carefully considered pastoral situations.For the sake of the conscience or health of each individual in these situations, I believe that using Fre wine or an equivalent is faithful to the institution of our Lord. I believe it to be more or less equivalent to placing a drop or two of regular wine into a small amount of water in order to be consumed by a communicant. I think either practice would be faithful, and thus guard that Christian’s conscience or health.

I do not think it would be a helpful practice to fully replace the usual sort of communion wine with Fre wine or an equivalent (that is, made from grapes and still retaining even a minuscule amount of alcohol). It would be better to retain commonly used communion wine for the sake of confession against those who insist on grape juice. This would also serve well the consciences of those who desire to be faithful to the institution of our Lord in using wine and who would not have had a pastoral conversation regarding the use of Fre wine or an equivalent.

For an introduction of any type of non-alcohol or alcohol-removed wine in his congregation, the pastor should do his homework and ensure that the wine is made from grapes, has been allowed to ferment (that is, allowed to become alcoholic), and following the process of alcohol removal still retains some measure – no matter how small – of alcohol.

Lent’s here: What are you giving up? That’s the question every year, isn’t it? Chocolate or sweets is always popular. Nowadays I’m aware of a whole bunch of people who step away from Facebook or Twitter for these 40 days.

Go ahead and give up chocolate or sweets or TV or Facebook or whatever for Lent. Do it; really, it’s good for you.

These are all fine and good. As Luther writes in the Small Catechism, “Fasting and bodily preparation are certainly fine outward training.” Far be it from me to dictate whether something you choose to give up is good or bad. Though, I would be remiss to fail to remind you that none of this will affect how our Lord looks at you: He sees Jesus, giving up His very life for you. God’s pleasure with you is not because you give something up; it’s because He gave up His only Son.

But allow me to encourage you to give up something more. Give up whatever it is that keeps you from being in the Divine Service every Sunday. Give up your meal plans or housework or whatever it is that drives you straight out the door after the Divine Service and keeps you and your children from the Sunday Scripture Study and Sunday School. Give up the distractions and hustle and bustle that keep you from stopping and reading some Scripture and praying every day, individually and as a family.

Lent is about reflecting on our weakness and sinfulness, and thus repenting. And that repenting can hurt. But the hurt is good; it’s ripping out the rotten cancer that’s leading us to put ourselves before God and our neighbor and not do those things which He desires of us. “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

So please, allow me to offer this request and accompanying advice:

Put the Sunday Divine Service and Scripture Study on your calendar for the rest of February and all of March. Do it right now. Make it a non-negotiable appointment. It might hurt, but you won’t regret it.

After dinner each night, sit down with everyone in your household and have a devotion together. I’m not always good about this, either. I know from experience that it takes work to establish and sustain this habit. Remember, the devil and your old sinful flesh want you to watch American Pickers instead of being in the Word. But I promise: when you hear from God every day and pray to Him, your days will be better.

Ask your neighbors or coworkers how you can pray for them during Lent. It’ll help them, and it may provide an opportunity to talk more about Jesus; you might even get a chance to invite them to the Divine Service!

It is not good for Christ’s people to be absent from the Divine Service, to not be studying His Word together with their pastor, to not be reading and praying together as a household. Nothing good comes from this. We must repent of our distraction and laziness.

But every good comes when God’s people are listening to Him and receiving His Supper; when they are being taught by His pastors; when they are caring for one another in daily study and prayer.

So again I plead: come to the Divine Service, come to Scripture Study and Sunday School, devote yourselves daily to the word and prayer. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Dear Christians, what a treasure we have from Jesus! Let us use it as fully as we can during this Lententide, and always.